Unilever updates marketing status: 800 roles may be cut

Marc Mathieu of Unilever says the company’s marketing structure and capabilities were based on a commercial environment before global platforms like Facebook existed, which necessitates the changes which may be made.
Photo: Chris Pearce

Unilever
is stomping its way through an unprecedented worldwide cut of 800 marketing roles in the $60 billion business, and global media platforms like Google, Facebook and Twitter are partly to blame.

Unilever, he said, needed to be faster, more efficient and make room for people with new digital capabilities that could manage a media regime in which programs and projects could launch globally but be made relevant in local markets in record time.

Marketing adaptation

“It was necessary for us to look at how we adapt to a world in which our marketing structures had no change since the invention of Facebook or Google or Twitter," he said.

“Just a few years ago we didn’t have a global media platform like Facebook or Twitter. The reality now is we have the ability to execute locally but don’t. So more global platforms give us ­permission to do that and to leverage our scale to do it. Part of it [job cuts] are also making sure we don’t become too fat and get too complacent."

Mr Mathieu, who was in Sydney two weeks ago as a keynote for the Global Marketer Conference, staged by the Australian Association of National Advertisers, said Unilever’s aim was to be “the best marketing company in the world".

“This whole approach is about being slimmer, faster, and being more agile and also about being able to bring in new skills that can transform the digital agenda, the brand publishing agenda and the community management agenda," he said.

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Ambitious and controversial agenda

Part of Unilever’s ambitious and sometimes controversial agenda, led by worldwide CEO
Paul Polman
, was for the company to become an environmental and social-sustainability leader.

It has opened the company up to ongoing criticism from social and en­vir­onmental activists about double standards – for instance, Unilever on one hand is promoting “real beauty" for women through Dove and on the other exploits young men’s testosterone driven stunts for Lynx deodorant (Axe globally) in which women are often portrayed as sexual conquests.

The “purpose-driven brands" movement that Mr Mathieu is leading at Unilever has seen the company address criticism with global programs for Axe and Lynx in which the brands actively encourage young blokes to give blood, for example. Mr Mathieu said social media platforms helped the company launch globally and manage locally.

“This is the journey we’re on and we certainly don’t have all the answers and our opponents often say that," the French-born Mr Mathieu said.

“This combination of determination, ambition and also humility is actually critical. The reality is yes, there are some areas which are more beautiful than others. There are some areas on which we are clearly going forward very fast and some which we are still learning, we’re still finding the way. But we are very lucky.

“You can’t embed sustainability and drive it as a change platform inside a company unless it’s carried by the CEO or chairman. It’s one thing to say you have agents of change, but the permission needs to be given and driven by the CEO."